Samuel Eliot Morison and His Catholic Sympathies
By John Carrigg, Professor of History at Franciscan University
Samuel Eliot Morison entered Harvard in 1904 fully determined to
major in mathematics; but Professor Albert Bushnell Hart detoured him
into history and urged Morison to write, as his thesis, a biography
of one of his distinguished forbears, Harrison Gray Otis, whose
papers were stored in the Morison wine cellar. That thesis became
Morison's Ph.D. dissertation from Harvard in 1912 entitled, . It was published the next year by
Houghton Mifflin. Looking back on it, Morison said it was a and only sold 700 copies, but laid the basis for his career
as a historian and his appointment to the faculty of Berkeley and
later Harvard.
In 1921 , Morison's was
published. It grew out of a course on the history of Massachusetts
that he taught. The book, one of my favorites, has a great chapter on
the Whaling era and another on the Clipper ships. He said that book
was a product of research and of his hobby of sailing along the New
England coast. In it he described an ecumenical incident that
occurred in 1803. A Boston merchant ship, the , put into
a lonely California port and
"Its people got on beautifully with a group of mission fathers who
came down to trade and gossip. They spent two weeks together on this
lonely shore, dining alternately in tent and cabin, inaugurating a
half century of close and friendly relations between Puritan and
Padre on the California coast. Nothing like a common interest in
smuggling to smooth religious differences."
Out of the Maritime history grew another volume, , a series of biographical sketches of the founders of New
England.
In the early twenties, Morison was the first American historian to
hold the Harmsworth Chair of History at Oxford where he taught for
three years. In 1925, he returned to Harvard as a full professor and
began work on his history of the University in preparation for its
300th anniversary. It culminated in a multi-volume work, , which
appeared in 1936 and won for him the Jusserand Medal and the Loubat
prize, both academic distinctions.
Next he got on the trail of Columbus, a trail that he had been
following intermittently since 1916, when Professor Edward Channing
asked him to take over his American Colonial History course. This was
in August and Morison had a month to prepare for the opening day
class. Any of us who have been given a new course to teach on short
notice can sympathize with that. Morison relates that on the eve of
the first class he had been so fascinated by the subject that he had
not gone beyond Columbus. He was destined to spend forty years on the
subject. Like Parkman, Morison was convinced that the historian must
visit the scene of his story to better understand the problems that
confronted his hero; and so between 1936 and 1940, he took four
voyages under sail to the Caribbean and across the Atlantic and back,
recording the wind, the tides, and the weather, which were changed
but little since Columbus' day and viewing the islands and coastlines
as seen through the eyes of the great discoverer. And finally, with
all this experience and the voluminous records gathered by the
Italian and Spanish governments, and with complete sympathy for the
Catholic faith that impelled Columbus to ever new and more amazing
coastlines of , he wrote his masterful biography,
. This came out in 1942 in both a two and a
one-volume version. In 1955, he wrote
in the hope of reaching a wider public. This was translated into
Japanese, Italian, Dutch, Hungarian, Polish, Russian, Persian and
Arabic. Finally, flying with his friend, Mauricio Obregon, he took a
huge number of pictures of the islands and mainlands that Columbus
first viewed and put them together in still another book entitled,
.
In the prologue to his epic biography of Christopher Columbus --
-- Morison concludes his summary of the
European scene in 1942 with these words:
"I cannot forget the faith that sent this man forth, to the benefit
of all future ages. And so writing in a day of tribulation both for
Europe and for America, I venture to close my prologue by the prayer
with which Columbus began his work
"
The tone of that passage is the tone of the whole work, sympathetic
and reverent. There is no Gibbon or even Parkman in Morison. He is
quite comfortable with the Catholic view of things.
When Columbus returned from his first voyage to America he spent Holy
Week in Seville. Morison describes the meaning of that season in what
would be difficult for the most ardent Catholic to match:
"Holy Week in Seville, with its alternation of abject humility and
superb pride, penance and pardon, death and victory seemed at once a
symbol and a fitting conclusion to his great adventure. The daily
processions of the brotherhoods with their gorgeously bedecked
statues of saints, the ancient ceremonies in the Cathedral -- renting
of the temple veil, knocking at the great door, candles on the great
tenebrario extinguished until only the one representing the Light of
the World remained, the washing of feet on Maundy Thursday, the
supreme Passion on Good Friday when the clacking of the matraca
replaced the cheerful bells, the consecration of the paschal candle,
and the supreme ecstasy of Easter morning -- all that moved Columbus
as no worldly honors could and strengthened the conviction that his
own toils and triumphs fitted the framework of the Passion."
At the beginning of each chapter in his .
Morison provides a brief quotation, usually in Latin with an English
translation, and the majority of them from Scripture -- many from the
psalms, which give a key to the subject ahead.
Finally a line from Psalm 106 leads into the chapter that describes
the rescue of Columbus: "Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble
-- and he delivered them out of their distresses."
After Columbus had discovered the mainland of South America in 1498,
he entered in his Journal these words:
"And your Highnesses will win these lands, which are an Other World
() and where Christianity will have so much
enjoyment and our faith in time so great an increase. All this I say
with very honest intent, and because I desire that your Highnesses
may be the greatest lords in the world, lords of it all I say; and
that all be with much service to and satisfaction of the Holy
Trinity."
To this Morison adds an emphatic Amen:
"Marvelous prophecy, superb faith! At a time when not fifty people of
importance in Spain believed in Columbus or valued his discoveries,
when the court doubtless hoped that shipwreck or disaster would rid
them forever of this importunate Genoese, when his name was cursed on
the lips of the Spaniards in Hispaniola, he foresaw the vast revenue
that his sovereigns were about to secure. He foretold that
Christianity whose area had been shrinking since the rise of Islam,
would here win new converts to the Cross, that the Catholic faith was
destined to advance triumphantly into Otro Mundo, this Other and New
World."
As I said above, he was convinced that the historian must visit the
scene as Parkman did, but Morison gives even Parkman a gentle nudge
because he never attempted to write of sea voyages and discoveries.
(What about his treatment of Jacques Cartier in ?)
Indeed, Morison was a master of narrative history and his books are a
pleasure to read. It all seemed so effortless, but Morison avowed
that it was the result of hard work and came after writing and
rewriting and rewriting. I recall what the great sportswriter Red
Smith said: "Writing is easy. All you have to do is sit in front of a
typewriter and sweat a pint of blood."
In reading through the obituaries written at the time of Morison's
death, one finds unstinting praise for his great gift of composition.
"He told history dramatically and splendidly." His writings possessed
a "standard of literary distinction seldom equaled and never
surpassed. A master narrative historian he was a pleasure to read for
his figure of phrase and the enthusiasm that suffused virtually every
page of his book."
As a literary artist he was a master. He wrote with "unabating gusto
and momentum." His works possessed an "effortless unaffected quality
of vocabulary and cadence." He wrote with "special vividness and
depth." "His naval narrative with its crackling prose...is a model of
narrative history. "
Although Morison possessed the Christian vision and was quite
comfortable with the Catholic view, which is emphatically clear in
his treatment of Columbus, he was a political liberal and a strong
supporter of FDR whom he consldered one of our great presidents. He
had absolutely no sympathy for the Barnes-Beard-Tansill view of
Roosevelt's foreign policy that held that the president talked peace
but plotted war. In fact, when Beard's book, came out, Morison blasted it in review that
appeared in the entitled significantly enough,
"History Through a Beard."
But in things religious Morison was quite traditional and much closer
to Columbus, the Catholic, than he was to Roosevelt, the liberal
Democrat.
Morison sees the name Christopher as very significant in the life of
Columbus.
Why the parents of Columbus chose the name Christofaro for their son,
born in 1451, we do not know, but in so doing, they furthered the
natural bent of the boy's mind. Saint Christopher was a tall, stout
pagan who yearned to know Christ but could not seem to do anything
about it. He dwelt on the bank of a river in Asia Minor where there
was a dangerous ford and by reason of his great stature and strength
helped many a traveler to cross. One day when he was asleep in his
cabin he heard a Child's voice cry out, 'Christopher, Christopher.
Come and set me across the river!' So out he came, staff in hand and
took the infant on his shoulders. As he waded across, the Child's
weight so increased that it was all he could do to keep from
stumbling and falling, but he reached the other bank safely. 'Well,
now my lad,' said he, 'thou hast put me in great danger, for thy
burden waxed so great that had I borne the whole world on my back it
could have weighed no more than thee.' To which the child replied,
'Marvel not, for thou hast borne upon thy back the whole world and
Him who created it. I am the Child whom thou servest in doing good
for mankind. Plant thy staff near yonder cabin, and tomorrow it shall
put forth flowers and fruit -- proof that I am indeed thy Lord and
Savior.' Christopher did as he was bid, and sure enough, next
morning, his staff had become a beautiful date-palm."
Morison goes on:
"From that day forth Christopher has been the patron saint of all who
travel by land, sea, or air. In his name, Christopher Columbus saw a
sign that he was destined to bring Christ across the sea to men who
knew Him not. Indeed, the oldest known map of the New World, dated
A.D. 1500, dedicated to Columbus by his shipmate, Juan de la Cosa, is
ornamented by a vignette of Saint Christopher carrying the Infant
Jesus on his shoulders."
So Morison concludes,
"We may fairly say that the first step toward the discovery of
America was taken by the parents of Columbus when they caused him to
be baptized Christofaro in some ancient church of Genoa, one day in
the late summer or early fall of 1451."
This article was taken from "The Dawson Newsletter," Fall 1994, P.O.
Box 332, Fayetteville, AR 72702, $8.00 per year.
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